How do you deal with power outages? Do you read by candlelight? Flashlights? Use a self-lit e-reader or tablet? Skip reading altogether for the duration and instead play games with the family?

Let it pour, let the thunder roll, let the lightning crack by the window. The more furious the storm, the more likely I am to bury myself in a book. I experienced using a flashlight but only once or twice and very quickly each time. Back home power outages often occurred as soon as the sun set. I would watch my mother read her Bible with a little gas lamp; moths hover around the light and then drop one by one. We would linger in the living room after vespers waiting for electricity to come back. When it didn’t the parents would play scrabble by candlelight while I would leaf through a book, end up reading a few pages before falling asleep.

Thursday Thirteen: Books I bought just for the delight of owning themThe first four are coffee table books. The rest are bought for the European countryside in them, ancient architecture, ideas for keeping books, Asperger Syndrome, and so on. I’m having a great time with them. These are 13 books I recently added to my bookshelf –

Quick–what are you reading right now? Would you recommend it? What’s it about?

Pocket Finance by The Economist Books. Does it count? It’s one of thousands of finance books out there; a “guide that outlines the complexities of financial concepts and practice through essays and alphabetized terms.”

If you are in higher education, Southeast Asia region- finance, accounting, management sort of stuff, you might fancy it for side reading. Come to my nook and we’ll discuss it over tea. Coffee if you like or martini. It’s just that at work there’s talk of gearing up subject content for business undergrads; things like the AEC (Asian Economic Community), etceterati. This is back-up just in case.

Thursday Thirteen: International Book Week

There’s a bit of fun going on around FB in honor of international book week. Bookworms are invited to grab the closest book to them, turn to page 52, and post the 5th sentence as their status. I’m tweaking it for T13 today. Here are thirteen shortened 5th sentences from books littering my bed right now –

1 Capital adequacy. Pocket Finance, The Economist Books 2 I dare say the Colonel will leave her all his fortune. Emma, Jane Austen 3 People always thought he had been to Oxford or Cambridge. Eating People is Wrong, Malcolm Bradbury

4 She’d learned capital optimisation promiscuously. The Lazarus Vault, Tom Harper 5 They recite together the Veni creator spiritus. Ladies in Waiting, Anne Somerset 6 But the beastie vanished into the chestnut wood. Wuthering Bites, Sarah Gray 7 The objective is to have the clubface make contact with the ball slightly. Golf, Bernard Gallacher

8 Provencale style also inspired Sunday’s choices. The Heart Garden, Sunday Reed 9 Choose a stockpot large enough. Postcards from Kitchens Abroad, Diane Holuigue 10 Kolniyatcsh message will drown any that may be uttered. And Even Now, Max Beerbohm

Name a book you love in a genre you normally don’t care for. What made you decide to read it? Did it make you want to try more in that genre?

Harry Potter, and I ended up reading all seven books in the series. Broomsticks and cauldrons, wands and potions, what in the name of Merlin’s beard are they?…. I recall my own snigger at these things; look up my book shelf where the books are lovingly piled, and think of telling the sister-in-law how she influenced me to read HP.

Because I’m sure she has no idea what she’s done. She was holding a wineglass in one hand and HP2 in the other over a meal during one family get-together. The cover I saw was of Harry dangling from the flying car above the Yorkshire Moors. I wouldn’t have been curious if she was a ninth grader, but she’s a medical doctor. Okay, she’s a globe trotter too so maybe it was a book she did not finish from some trans-atlantic flight, but what business would a decent dermatologist have with petrificus totalus or wingardium leviosa?

That got my nostrils on the magical pages of HP for long, delightful hours and almost tempted me to steal a chapter or two at work. Curiosity could have killed the cat.

Erotica and dark fantasy (some call it a sub-genre) – I don’t last long in these genres. I get bored easily and then I go particular with money value.

Thursday Thirteen: I write like…

A haiku poet invited me to join his haiku meme. I went strolling around his site, and found a charmingly interesting widget that says he writes like Charles Dickens. There was a link so I hopped over there, and as I’m no writer, you could imagine what fun I got out of checking

“which famous writer I write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.”

Here we go —

1. As I’m someone who still loves having traditional books around, I say that’s the spirit! ~ E-books v. printed books, and whether a Kindle loaded with a thousand books would weigh heavier than one with only a hundred books.

During rainy weather! I love the rain, especially when I’m indoors. I love curling up in bed with a fuzzy blanket, a cup of hot chocolate or tea on the side table, and read read read. While traveling on a coach from Windsor Castle back to London, it rained. Hard. The next minute everything was white. That was my first snow experience ever and I was thinking… this would be perfect if there was a charming book in my hands right now!

The beach — well, every time I’m on a beach I’m doing something else like catching up with family and friends so the bedroom with the rain pitter-pattering on the roof works very well for me.

Thursday 13: Books (on my TBR pile) for the rainy days See if you might be interested in any of them. Most of them are recent.

1. Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart murder mystery in Victorian England 2. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown private lives under government surveillance 3. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes a touch of sunny Tuscany 4. Things That Are by Amy Leach communion with the wild world 5. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran hair removal, getting fat, tiny pants, expensive handbags 6. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf psychological elements, problem of perception 7. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot wonder of life, animal and human 8. The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes the lost art of letter writing, amnesia 9. Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta lack of communication in sibling relationships 10. The White Devil by Justin Evans contemporary horror set in a centuries-old boarding school, Lord Byron look-a-like 11. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor an artist’s life, otherworldly beings 12. White Shotgun by April Smith FBI agent, Italy 13. A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen classic mystery feel

Do any of your friends have book-based names for their pets? (Or their children?)

Piano lessons were imposed on me when I was a little girl. My love for reading extended to the short background of the music or biography of the composer written on my music books. I think I enjoyed the reading part more than working on the keys. Fast forward to 2002 I bought a toy poodle and named him Mozart, that’s him on the sidebar, after the composer. I use his photo as a bookmark.

My mother’s dog is named Shakespeare, after you-know-who. (sorry for the HP reference). A fairy tale – addict young niece named one of our cats Snow White, and the other George, after King George.

Thursday Thirteen: Books the feature dogs

1. Odyssey by Homer features Argos 2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov features Banga 3. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie features Bob 4. Call of the Wild by Jack London features Buck 5. The Roly-Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter features John Joiner 6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck features Candy’s dog 7. Two Gentlemen of Verona, by Shakespeare features Crab 8. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens features Diogenes 9. Harry Potter by JK Rowling features Fang 10. Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien features Garm 11. Ulysses by James Joyce features Garryowen 12. Adam Bede by George Eliot features Gyp 13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens features Jip

Without much ado Harry Potter’s Hogwarts! What a place to explore! I’d like to transfigure arrogant Malfoy into a cross-eyed cockroach. *kidding* And when I feel like cutting Snape’s class I’ll hang out at Hagrid’s hut. Then during summers head to The Burrow. As Ron Weasley says, “it’s not much, but it’s home.”

Thursday 13: My favorite places in Harry Potter

1. Hogwartsthe moving staircases and all the magic learning! 2. The Burrow ‘dilapidated and standing only by magic’ ah!… wonderful 3. Hogsmeade Village appeals to the country girl in me 3. Madam Puddifoot’s is where we will have high tea 4. Diagon Alley shop til I drop 5. Shell Cottagea newly-weds’ home must be sweet and lovely 6. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes I want their anti-acne cream 7. Honeyduke’s Sweetshop for my sweet tooth 8. The Leaky Cauldron when one day in Diagon Alley is not enough 9. The Three Broomsticks running a pub and living above it 10. Scrivenshaft’s Quill Supplies good old writing paraphernalia11. Magical Menagerie offers advice on animal care and health 12. Florean Fortescue’s choco-raspberry with chopped nuts 13. Flourish & Blotts books of course

Perhaps a combination of both. I have been living alone since my big D in 2006 and I don’t seem to mind; rarely wish for company. Seventy five percent of my king size bed is littered with books. I occupy the remaining 25% when I sleep. As for socializing I am happy meeting friends for lunch, dinner or high tea in or outside my nook. I love cozy cafes. Church, concerts, lectures, or family get-togethers – I welcome them as revitalizing shot to my routine which is being alone.

Thursday 13: They are also in and out

Breakfast this morning was spent watching CNN’s Pierce Morgan talking with people about President Barack Obama’s support for gay marriage. I wonder what would these writers have said if they were the ones interviewed.

As an only child I often wondered what it was like to have siblings who like to read. Would we have a contest on who could read how many books in a month? Share and discuss each other’s reads while munching chocolate? There were cousins. But all one did was devour comics while another read the same author I read hundreds of full moons ago – Irving Wallace. Parents regulated my reading pile, and Wallace wasn’t exactly on their list of approved material, so it was fun sharing the secret read with a cousin who did the same experiment. We were probably looking for supplemental info to our high school sex education. I’m a fan of my parents’ literary gifts; didn’t mind reading alone almost all the time.

Thursday 13: Famous siblings – except perhaps the last pair, there’s one common denominator among most of them: rivalry

1. Kate and Bianca in Taming of the Shrew– fought bitterly
2. Orlando and Oliver in As You Like It – relationship was marked by antagonism
3. Cain and Abel in the Bible – one brother’s jealousy led to murder
4. Leah and Rachel in the Bible – competed for the love of Jacob
5. Ares and Athena in Disney’s Hercules– competed over territory
6. Venus and Serena Williams, in tennis – compared with each other by the media
7. Janet and Michael Jackson, in music – compared with each other by the media
8. Rose and Maggie in In Her Shoes – alternately loving and argumentative
9. Michael and Fredo in The Godfather – their conflict was fatal
10. Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, advice columnists – very close and publicly antagonistic
11. Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, actresses – had an uneasy relationship from childhood and later stopped talking to each other completely
12. Ann and Mary Boleyn, The Other Boleyn Girl – contended for the affection of King Henry VIII
13. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – two sisters very different in their ways of thinking and feeling

Has a book ever inspired you to change anything in your life, fiction or non-fiction alike?

Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad inspired me to change the way I look at money. Kate White’s Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy GirlsDo helped me change the way I evaluate myself. The Da Vinci Code inspired me to change my attitude toward The Bible. The entertainment of puzzles in Dan Brown’s work and its references to concepts that ring a bell around times long ago when the Bible was spoon-fed to me, sparked a fancy to rediscover non-fiction mystery that the Bible has abundance of, as well as advice and knowledge that never gets old.

Thursday 13: Inspiring changes. Which ones speak to you best?

1. Change brings opportunity. ~ Nido Qubein

2. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. ~ Life’s Little Instruction Book

3. Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change. ~ Jim Rohn

4. Use what talents you possess, the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. ~ Henry van Dyke

5. Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person. ~ Leo Tolstoy

6. Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ~ Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement address

7. The greatest mistake you can do in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard

8. Twenty years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

9. Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix ~ Christina Baldwin

10. We all have big changes in our lives, that are more or less a second chance. ~ Harrison Ford quoted by Gary Jenkins, Imperfect Hero

11. Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, humiliated before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, raped before you, yet someone survived. You can do anything you choose to do. ~ Maya Angelou

12. We have a strategic plan. It’s called ‘doing things.’ ~ Herb Kelleher

13. Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful is it is encouraging because it means things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. ~King Whitney Jr

Put too many swear words in a story and I lose interest. Too much cursing sounds like limited vocabulary, stunted creativity. The other one is something I have experienced for the first time – a novel with an unlikeable character. The Wise Woman is my first Philippa Gregory. If I wasn’t fond of historical fiction (besides thinking that Gregory is brilliant at her genre) I wouldn’t have minded not finishing the book. The heroine is so unlikeable almost every page developed in me a distaste of her that even her death in the conclusion didn’t convince me it redeemed her. I want my reading experience (outside work) to be a pleasure; not characters that I don’t enjoy.

Thursday 13: Unusual words that begin with letter N

You may be familiar with or have encountered the following words already. If you do not know what they mean, I hope you have as much fun guessing as I had fun putting them together.